Permission based email lists

IT'S safe to say Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wasn't expecting to be credited for Trump and Brexit at his hearing at the European Parliament on Tuesday. Enter Nigel Farage. While MEPs tore into Zuck for his company's long list of gaffes, Farage told the tech mogul that his social media empire fuelled populist movements in the UK, Italy and the US. "Historically, of course, it's true that through Facebook and other forms of social media, there’s no way that Brexit or Trump or the Italian election could have ever possibly happened," Farage said. "It was social media that allowed people to get around the back of mainstream media. "Perhaps you’re horrified of this creation of yours and what it’s led to," he added. It was a short respite for the Facebook boss, who spent the majority of the session listening to the 50 odd questions being read out by MEPs. They ranged from queries about Russian propaganda on Facebook to fake news and accounts. And, in light of the EU's … [Read more...] about Nigel Farage tells Zuckerberg ‘no way Brexit could have happened’ without Facebook

Rend is an in-development faction-based survival game with a fantasy theme. It’s made by new independent studio Frostkeep Studios, which is made up of former developers from World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Overwatch, and more. After we had the chance to see it at PAX West last year, Rend is finally having its first public alpha, which you can sign up for a chance to be invited on its website here. The quick rundown on Rend is that it is a survival game focused on faction cooperation. Each server will see three factions with equal numbers of players attempting to collect enough souls to be crowned the victors. Over the course of a “match” that could last a few months, there will be combat with players, with monsters, siege warfare, crafting better gear, hunting down bigger monsters and challenges for good gear, and more. To find out much more about what Rend is, read our write-up from PAX West linked above. The alpha phase for Rend will slowly ramp up, so if you … [Read more...] about Fantasy Survival Game Rend Begins First Public Alpha; Roadmap Detailed

What Are Mobile KPIs? So you’ve created an awesome mobile app. The design is perfectly intuitive and visually stunning. It works even better than you thought it would. In fact, you are starting to wonder how you ever lived without it. You’re even starting to see some measurable results based on industry standard key performance indicators. Naturally, you hope that your audience likes it as much as you do, or at least enough to generate some revenue! Figuring out your mobile app’s value and assessing your app’s performance starts with knowing which mobile KPIs (key performance indicators) and mobile app metrics are the ones that you should care about and track. The process starts once your app is listed in the app stores and your “baby” is out in the world. Once it is being downloaded and used by your target audience, you’ll want to track how it is performing via the aforementioned KPIs and metrics. But how do you define success and measure your … [Read more...] about 50+ KPIs to Measure Your Mobile Game or App

Shaun McCabe is the game director for Ratchet & Clank (PS4), and the production director at Insomniac Games’ studio in Durham, North Carolina. Chad Dezern is the Creative Director for Ratchet & Clank (PS4), and the studio director of the North Carolina location. The two also co-directed Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One (2011), Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault (2012), Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus (2013). *** Sure, it seems obvious now. Of course there should be a Ratchet & Clank game to tie in with the major motion picture. But Ratchet & Clank for the PlayStation 4—designed as a killer one-two punch alongside the film, the ultimate version of an origin story—didn’t always seem like such a great idea. Of course, we were thrilled when we heard that the film was a go. We’ve long felt that Ratchet, Clank, Qwark, and their Solana galaxy milieu had all of the action, humor, pathos, and just plain But … [Read more...] about Ratchet & Clank (2016) postmortem

“Lair was a genuine fuck-up by everybody involved, probably me the worst,” says Julian Eggebrecht, one of Factor 5’s co-founders, about the studio’s disappointing PlayStation 3 game. The approximately $25 million project, a game about dragons and fantasy warfare, took three years to develop, which included a yearlong delay. From faulty studio decisions, publisher strife and arguments regarding studio dynamics, Lair fought its way out from the studio that created it. Lair itself did not ruin Factor 5 — although the circumstances didn’t help — but it ended a relationship with Sony and left the studio dangling in searching of a follow-up project that never came. Before Lair The history of Lair intertwines with the history of Factor 5. Back in the late ‘80s, the German studio began working alongside Europe’s PC boom, plugging away on action games like Turrican (and its sequels) before switching over to consoles. In 1992, LucasArts and … [Read more...] about Lair: What went wrong